First Congo On The Road

Although everyone is back at home, there were some comments from the closing on Friday evening that we think may be of interest to our wider church community.

• Most of the relief agencies and their volunteers have left the area. Three groups provide intermittent assistance. Only one of them other than Back Bay gets steady volunteers.
• Back Bay Mission has taken on more of the cases that would otherwise have used one of those other agencies. Of course this has been very costly for Back Bay and they are currently 6 figures in the hole.
• Back Bay, like all other non-profits including churches, are not tax-exempt in Mississippi.
• UCC churches are the pre-dominant supporters of Back Bay. A number of Methodist churches are also involved.
• There is a very significant Vietnamese population that came to the area as fishermen.
• School buses in the community are still in very short supply so school schedules are staggered so that a single bus and run multi routes morning and night.
• Back Bay has volunteers booked out at least 12-13 weeks.

The dates for our group have been booked for the next 3 years!

Some reflections on the trip from the leader.

This has been an incredible week.  I think this is the first year that we had no injuries.  As the individual that has had more than his share of mishaps during Back Bay trips, I am very grateful for that.

I am amazed at how well our group and the group from Ohio that we shared living and working space with got along.  Apparently, everyone followed the advise to first pack patience.

The project is a new home for a Vietnamese widow and her children.  They have been living about 20 miles north of Biloxi  in rented space in Pascagoula.  We were able to bring them closer to returning to their old neighborhood by completing the drywall installation (previous work groups had started to hang some), taping, mudding, sanding, mudding, and installing about 3/4 of the siding.  We know they have been monitoring our progress at night because we found a note on the wall written by one of the children thanking the workers.  We wrote one back.  The transformation of a project from a rough construction site to something that looks more like a home when drywall is installed is very striking.  With the addition of much of the siding, it is easy to imagine a family living there soon.  Unfortunately, although the address is the same, the neighborhood is not the one they left five years ago.  There are still more empty lots than occupied ones and I don’t know how many of the occupied homes have the same occupants as before.

Other work campers volunteered for working at Loaves and Fishes (a soup kitchen), the Back Bay food pantry, and the Micah Center.  Craig Steenkamp (Back Bay’s Associate for Housing Recovery) commented that this is one of the few times when groups filled all of the available slots for help in these “non-building” areas.

I can’t emphasize enough how wonderful it was to have campers that volunteered to handle most of the cooking.  It was so great to come back to the Mission House and have lunch or dinner waiting for us.

The Gulf Coast, while no longer looking like a disaster zone, is still a very long way from complete recovery.  This coupled with the fact that for the first time since the hurricane we didn’t see any other volunteer groups working.  Craig said he could only think of three other groups that still have volunteers coming on a regular basis and those do not have groups every week.  While Back Bay has plenty of volunteers, they are experiencing a severe shortage of funding.  This is forcing them to limit the numbers in each group and to increase the number of weeks when they have no campers.

Looking ahead, we are committed to coming every year for the foreseeable future.  We have reserved for 20 people in 2011, 24 in 2012, and 24 in 2013.  All of these trips are the second week of October.

Blessings to all.

The heat goes on and so do the adventures!

A few of the comments heard this morning about our adventure:

• “Unexpected results, should be expected”
• “Measure twice, cut once”
• “The third time is for practice”
• “For Pete’s sake, snap the line already”
• “Do it right or do it over”
• Client to volunteer, “I really like your smile, it makes me feel good”, response from volunteer, “I really like your smile it makes ME feel good”
• “It sure feels good to make a difference”
• “Working side by side is certainly a great way to make new friends”
• “Amazing how much a shower and clean clothes can boost someone’s spirits”

Adding some pictures now, some more later.

This is a new construction house for a family that is still displaced following Katrina.

Here is our work group.

We are also enjoying sharing the work and the lodging with a group from Ohio.

Monday, getting started

The Park Brothers, together again.

Got it made in the shade.

This was moments after "shut up and snap the line already!" (sibling love)

Week's end

Week's end

Week's end

Week's end

Notes with family

Hot, Hot, Humid but lovin’ every minute!!

Comments/Notes from The Work site:

The building has transformed into a home in the last few days now that all of the drywall is up and “mudding” is at various stages in all the rooms. The siding is complete on the north and south sides and thanks to the leadership of the Parker Brothers and their “sunshine team”, the east side had lots of progress today.

Comments/Notes from the Mica Center:

There were at least a dozen people in line 45 minutes before the doors opened this morning. The clients are primarily men but today there was a family who were about to be evicted from their most recent living quarters, a tent in a campground which they could no longer afford. Their soon to be 4 year old son was outfitted with some new clothes. He wanted to see the picture that had been taken at which point his little finger focused on the bag of clothes in his arms “clothes, clothes! he said with a beaming smile.

Comments/Notes from Loaves and Fishes:

Things were interesting right from the start today as someone forgot to put the beans on to simmer last night for the stew they planned to serve today. A quick look at the resources available lead to leftover breakfast patties with gravy added and doughnuts that were a few days old. It all disappeared quickly.

We also learned that the person running the program had come to the area to provide supplies for the oil rigs and was laid off so he is leading this volunteer project while he looks for other employment.

After work this afternoon we met with the Bay Back representatives.

A few interesting tidbits:

• Back Bay has built or rebuilt 176 homes since Katrina. This was possible because of $5 Million worth of volunteer hours.
• The typical cost to build a modest home with is $70,000. They have to contract out for A/C, plumbing, electric and the foundation (which costs $13,000) raises the house 11 feet above the ground, with beams that go down 12 feet.
• The home owners may get grant funds to cover part of the cost but they have to be able to show that they can afford their energy efficient home in the long term.
• They have many more requests than they can build. Families with no homes are the highest priorities.

Jambalaya for dinner. Boy, those Ohio ladies really know how to cook! Then off to church for the Wednesday evening service. Tomorrow will be a short work day so that people have a bit of time to explore the area.

Snippets from debriefing after the first day’s experiences:

Comments from Micah Center volunteers: so many men coming to shower and have their clothes washed! Respectful and appreciative;  some of the socks, underwear and jeans we brought down were distributed this very first day because their supplies were so low.

Comments from building crew: . . . . (silence) . . . . when one of the workers found a message about 4 feet up the wall obviously written in a child’s hand “Thanks you guys!!!

Loaves and Fishes crew: we thought they’d come and get as much as they could eat but the servings we provided were so small we would have left hungry had we eaten there.

Food Pantry crew: People eligible only once in 30 days to supplement their food supply received a small bag of groceries that any of us would likely use in a single day. When the last can of fruit left the shelves we couldn’t resist a trip to Walmart to replenish the shelves. Never thought about how important something as simple as a birth certificate might be.

A HUGE thanks to our fellow work campers from Ohio who brought along cooks!

We are having a great time getting to know each other. Everyone passed the “pop quiz” (even though a nameless minister thought Moses had an ark) in that I think folks had a good time with it and it was a good ice breaker. We are very happy that a couple of work campers from the Ohio group offered to prepare the meals that we will share in the Mission House including lunches that will be more than our usual cold cut sandwiches. Everyone is up early, anxious to get on with it. With a total of 35 work campers we are a large group. Several people are signing up to perform what Back Bay is calling the people service areas. This includes Loaves and Fishes, the food pantry, and The Micah Center. The Micah Center is new this year. It serves the homeless by providing a place to take showers, do laundry, get counseling, have access to a phone and address to use for job applications, and other basic needs. The Micah Center is one of the new buildings on the Back Bay campus. We look forward to having this new experience become a part of our Back Bay Experience.
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Blessings.

It’s 4:00 on Sunday.  Our entire group has arrived and it looks like our co-workers from Genoa, OH are all here as well.  It is a time of renewing friendships with those from prior years and meeting new friends.

There is a rumor that those trusted with transporting tools for the trip stopped at a casino and (to keep the story short and protect the guilty) apparently the tools are being safely stored by a local “pawn star”.  Not much consolation was provided by the comment that we have 30 days to retrieve them.

We are off to a great start!

Getting ready…leaving early tomorrow morning.

After leaving exactly one hour later than planned, we were making good time when car 1 inexplicably exited I-55 on a road that had no gas stations, no restaurants, no town, in fact no commercial development at all.  Imagined comment in car 2: “Why are we stopping at this cotton picking exit?”  Contact suspected passengers to solve this mystery.

The rest of the trip was blissfully uneventful.  We arrived at our Mount Vernon, IL hotel before 7:00 in spite of our late start and cotton picking delays.  Enjoyed dinner at The Pasta House and looking around speculated that there is a hotel room for every resident of Mount Vernon.